1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cell culture apparatus that cultures cells using a culture vessel, and a method that controls the cell culture apparatus.
2. Background Art
Conventionally, cell culture work is performed manually by skillful workers in a clean room that has been completely sterilized. Therefore, when culturing cells in large amounts in preparation for industrialization, time and expense is required to educate and train workers and the workload of the workers increases, and there is a possibility of human errors or taking of samples mistakenly and also of contamination caused by humans who possess fungi or the like. A large amount of costs are incurred to provide countermeasures for these possibilities. This represents a large barrier with respect to industrialization. These problems can be solved by automating a series of culture operations. With respect to automation of a step in cell culturing, JP Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2006-149237 describes a case of automating a step in which a culture medium is introduced into a culture vessel such as for seeding of cells or exchanging the medium. In the method of connecting a joint and a culture vessel described in JP Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2006-149237, a robot manipulator is used for attaching and detaching the culture vessel and the joint on the manipulator side. The configuration is such that, at that time, a connection can be made in a state in which a clean state is maintained in which a leakage of culture medium is prevented between the inside of the culture vessel and a tube of the joint through a valve by a resin membrane. Further exchange of the medium is carried out by supplying the culture medium from the bottom and discharging the medium from the top in a state in which the culture vessel that is connected by the manipulator is stood in the vertical direction.
Further, a method may be considered which makes it possible to rapidly and efficiently transfer a culture medium from a plurality of culture vessels, reduce loss of the culture medium and readily carry out washing. One example thereof is described in JP Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2004-89126. In this case, a culture vessel is provided in which a plurality of culturing holes for introducing a culture medium are formed. Through holes that penetrate through the culture vessel and open on the outer surface side of the culture vessel are formed in the bottom of these culturing holes, and means is provided that forcibly discharges the culture medium in the culturing holes from the through holes.